Vera Baird: The Government accepted almost all Baroness Corston's recommendations and are committed to diverting from custody vulnerable women who are not dangerous or serious offenders by strengthening services in the community that can tackle the complex needs of such women, who are frequently convicted of a lot of low-level offending. There have been 31 grants to such organisations, including Together Women and the Cardiff-based women's turnaround project, which is hosted by Safer Wales and offers practical support so that women can manage their lives better and do not fall into offending. My hon. Friend has been a great champion of the turnaround project.

Harriet Harman: There will be a free vote on this-of course, this is House business-but the hon. Lady will be aware that it is for the Government to table the motions. We take the Wright Committee's argument that that needs to be done with two characteristics: firstly, we need to seek consensus in order to take the matter forward, which is certainly what our approach will be, and I look forward to working with her and other hon. Members; and secondly, we need to make progress bit by bit. We will be making a good start and, I hope, a substantive and major start, with four key areas that I have outlined for debate and, I hope, decision by the House on 23 February.

Tobias Ellwood: The Minister has now acknowledged that we are going to spend less than was intended. Let me remind him what the Prime Minister said yesterday. He said:
	"The action that we are taking to counter terrorism at its source in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and elsewhere is a central part of our wider counter-terrorist strategy."-[ Official Report, 20 January 2010; Vol. 504, c. 303.]
	May I ask the Minister why he did not include the information that there would be a real-terms cut in spending because of the exchange rate problem?

Harriet Harman: The provisional business for next week is as follows:
	Monday 25 January-Remaining stages of the Financial Services Bill.
	Tuesday 26 January-Consideration in Committee of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (day 4).
	Wednesday 27 January-Opposition day [3rd allotted day]. There will be a debate on dementia services and care of the elderly, followed by a debate on out of hours care. Both debates will arise on an Opposition motion.
	Thursday 28 January-Topical debate: Subject to be announced; to follow, the Chairman of Ways and Means will name opposed private business for consideration.
	Friday 29 January-Private Members' Bills.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 1 February will include:
	Monday 1 February-Remaining stages of the Flood and Water Management Bill.
	Tuesday 2 February-Consideration in Committee of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill (day 5).
	Wednesday 3 February-Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports.
	Thursday 4 February-Remaining stages of the Corporation Tax Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Taxation (International and Other Provisions) Bill.
	Friday 5 February-Private Members' Bills.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 4 February will be:
	Thursday 4 February-A debate from the Joint Committee on Human Rights entitled "Demonstrating Respect for Rights? A Human Rights Approach to Policing Protest".

Jacqui Smith: May I push my right hon. and learned Friend on the subject of a debate about support for families so that I can raise the concerns of working parents across Redditch-married and unmarried-who fear that they will lose the little bit of help that comes from their tax credit as well as access to Redditch's children's centres so that funding can be given to an unthought-through and ill-conceived tax break to encourage them up the aisle?

Gordon Prentice: Do the Government intend to bring in a stand-alone Bill to deal with non-doms in Parliament, or will the Government rely on amending the Constitutional Reform Act 2005?

Natascha Engel: I, too, welcome the announcement of a debate on the Wright Committee report on 23 February. Normally, honourable parliamentarians on both sides of the House would share my disdain when changes are introduced to legislation or to the procedures of the House on a nod and a wink and under the cloak of consensus, but that does not apply in this case. I was a member of the Committee and I was not part of that consensus. Will my right hon. and learned Friend guarantee that none of the proposals will be introduced without a full debate on every issue? I do not share the consensus on electing the Chairs and members of Select Committees, or on the establishment of a House business Committee. I have deep concerns about those proposals, and I want a full debate on them. I am not part of this consensus.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: The Independent Planning Commission is about to receive an application from Hinkley Point in Somerset. Everything is going well, and I am very grateful for the Government's support, but we have hit a snag. The relevant Department also has to do its own consultation, and it is not doing it properly. Can we please have time to debate that? Unless the IPC gets the application right, the application could be knocked back or, worse still, undermine the whole IPC system. Can we have time to discuss that?

Andrew George: The hon. Gentleman says "albeit belated", but he is quoted as saying this at his party's conference in October:
	"There needs to be a code of practice properly enforced, but whether that requires a freestanding ombudsman which would be a new bureaucracy is not clear."
	It would therefore be fair to say that the change in the Conservative position is also belated.

James Paice: I obviously do not have time to retail a long list. We have two debates on the dairy industry in the House and Committee next week, when my hon. Friend might want to go into a bit more detail. Many dairy farmers are making a profit: part of the problem is the 6p or 7p a litre difference between the highest and lowest prices paid. The other issue is the cost of production. In a market in which the Government no longer-rightly-set prices, they are bound to do what they can to reduce the input costs, and that is part of what I am addressing, especially on regulation.
	On the issue of regulation, can the Minister bring us up to date on the situation with battery cages? We are hearing many stories of backing down on the 2012 ban, and we know that most European countries have hardly begun to introduce the enriched cages. What will the Government do to protect our industry and those farmers who have made significant new investment, but face egg imports from countries that have not done so?
	The Minister also referred to public sector food procurement. He mentioned improvement, but there has been precious little of that. This country should be predominant in supply of orchard fruit, given the industry in Kent and parts of the Welsh marches, but domestic supply fell from 46 per cent. in 2007-07 to 30 per cent. in 2007-08. The Government are consulting on a pilot healthier food mark, but does the Minister agree that that should involve the Red Tractor, or is it true that they propose to drop it from their proposals?
	Animal health is critical if we are to compete with other countries, especially in the grazing sector. The Government have announced their responsibility and cost-sharing proposals and appointed Rosemary Radcliffe to look into the issue and produce a report in November. However, we will have a draft Bill this month or next. What can be in that Bill if we will not have the substantive proposals from Ms Radcliffe until November? We cannot talk about increasing production and ignore the fact that some 40,000 head of cattle were culled last year because of bovine tuberculosis, up from 3,000 head a year when the Government took office-

Andrew George: That is a complete misapprehension and fails to understand how the market works. The Competition Commission has clearly shown that there are abuses within the supply chain and that suppliers are being pushed to the wall. That is during the deepest recession when the largest supermarkets are now posting record profits. It is not entirely unknown for the supermarkets achieve record profits. Yes, there is a benefit for someone-and we all know where it is going. Whether that is, as the Minister said, the impact of retrospective changes in the unwritten contracts, the lack of notice in delisting, the holding of suppliers liable for losses due to shrinkage, or other overriders within the system itself, the fact is that the whole thing needs a serious review.
	In January last year, we commissioned Roger Clarke of the Cardiff business school to undertake an independent investigation into the cost impacts on the supermarkets resulting form the application of regulation. He has since published a report for us. He made himself clear:
	"While the creation of an Ombudsman will involve some cost (estimated at about £5-6 million per year) this is likely to be small relative to consumer benefits as a whole. As noted by the CC, the actual size of the food retail industry in the UK is £110. 4 billion and a 0.1 per cent. price fall for the largest 4 retailers is equivalent to a reduction in consumer expenditure of £80 million a year".
	He also stated that
	"the costs are likely to be minor compared to the benefits for consumes that arise."

Philip Davies: I will try to be brief. I know that the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) wants to speak, and I want to give him enough time to set out his stall as well.
	I want to focus on the proposals for a supermarket ombudsman. I am afraid that the debate so far on this issue has been familiarly depressing. Debates in this place seem to follow the same old routine. First, an outside body makes a recommendation about something. In this case, it was the Competition Commission, but it can be Select Committees or other bodies set up by the Government. Whatever happens, we seem to take the view in this place that, whenever such a body produces a report, we all have to stand up and say, "Wasn't that a marvellous report? We can't think of anything bad to say about any of the recommendations, and everyone's done a wonderful job." We build up a cosy consensus in this place based on the fact that no criticism can ever be made of any report done by anybody about anything.
	I do not share that view. Are we really saying that we are happy to give the Competition Commission a blank cheque, that we are going to agree with everything that it comes up with, and that it must be marvellous simply because the Competition Commission says so. That appears to be the nature of the debate that we have had on this matter so far. Everyone seems to have said, "This must be a good thing because the Competition Commission says so." Some of us have thoughts and experiences of our own, however. I am not sure how much experience of the supermarket industry other hon. Members have had. I am one of the few who has spent a number of years working in it, and I would like to use the short time available to expose a few of the myths that have grown up around this subject in the House.
	I do not know whether it is a particularly British disease, but we seem to have a need to knock every successful industry in this country. We try to knock down any industry that reaches a certain size and level. We should be incredibly proud of our supermarket industry. It employs hundreds of thousands of people. Indeed, it employs people in each hon. Member's constituency, although I am not entirely sure whether some have any great desire to see those people in work. Supermarkets also provide a very good service to tens of millions of customers each week.

Philip Davies: I am going to press on, as I want to allow the hon. Gentleman time to elaborate his views later.
	I do not accept the premise that supermarket businesses are built on screwing suppliers into the ground and on not having a good relationship with their suppliers. To my mind, that would be nonsense.
	I will say in passing that the idea that we need an ombudsman to improve innovation in the food industry is laughable. We have a hugely innovative industry, so the idea that the ombudsman is essential to promote innovation in the industry is absolutely and utterly ludicrous. The ombudsman is being set up, it seems, on the premise that we have big, horrible and nasty supermarkets screwing their suppliers into the ground on price. The only possible upshot of a successful ombudsman, for those people who want to set it up, is that supermarkets will pay more to their suppliers for their goods. The only consequence of that is that the price to the consumer will go up.
	I would not mind this so much if we had an honest debate in this House. If people stood up and said, "I believe in a supermarket ombudsman; the likelihood is that it will put prices up by X per cent. but, overall, that will be beneficial to the country as a whole", that would be fine. I might disagree, but at least it would be an honest debate. Instead, we are offered something from cloud cuckoo land-I think Sir Alfred Sherman described that as politicians always offering "painless panaceas", and here we have our latest painless panacea. The painless panacea is this: we can have a supermarket ombudsman, which has the support of all three Front-Bench teams, who looks after suppliers, makes supermarkets pay more money to them, but, crucially, the upshot will be a lower price for the consumer. I do not think that many people would have to study that proposal for very long before they knew that that is patently and utterly ridiculous. If people want supermarkets to pay more to the suppliers, that is a perfectly legitimate point to argue, but at least have the honesty to accept that the only possible outcome is to put up prices to the consumer.

Philip Davies: The hon. Gentleman is right. I was going to come on to that point, but I shall touch on it now. The fact of the matter is that the biggest supermarket chains in the country, on which the efforts of the new ombudsman will be focused, have big suppliers by definition, as those suppliers are the ones who can produce the stuff in sufficient quantity to get it across the country. By definition, then, big supermarkets tend to have big suppliers. Many of those suppliers are huge multinational companies in their own right.
	In fairness to my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, he has recognised the issue and wants an ombudsman to look at smaller suppliers rather than suppliers per se; I give credit to my hon. Friend in that regard. However, we could end up with a ridiculous situation in which an ombudsman intervenes on behalf of a huge multinational food company that is actually bigger than the supermarket. In many cases, we should congratulate supermarkets on being hard-nosed in making big multinational companies reduce their prices for the benefit of the consumer rather than building up even bigger profits for themselves. Some pharmaceutical companies, for example, are massive and have huge marketing budgets.
	Another myth is that supermarkets persuade suppliers to do special offers and make the supplier pay for them. The fact is that suppliers fall over themselves to provide special offers for supermarkets. They say to the supermarket, "Please can we do a 'buy one, get one free' offer on our product?", because it is part of their marketing budget. They use those huge budgets to urge supermarkets to make such offers, and they are quite happy to pay for them, because it helps to build their market share. In my time at Asda, I might add, we used to say to suppliers, "Rather than you coming to us with 'buy one, get one free' or 'three for the price of two' offers, why not just have a long-term reduced price?", so that rather than the people who buy the product in that particular week or month or families of five or six benefiting, every single customer benefits from an overall lower price. It is not supermarkets that force suppliers into these deals; it is often the suppliers themselves who are insistent on those special offers. It is another misapprehension.

Andrew Pelling: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for giving me seven-I want to give the Minister time to respond-of the remaining 28 minutes available for this debate. As a confirmed Heathite, I naturally recoil when he rises to speak, but he has nevertheless highlighted some real difficulties with the GSCOP. However well meaning government is, sometimes its good intentions are not only not delivered, but have malevolent unintended effects.
	As the hon. Gentleman has said, GSCOP could end up strengthening the hand of large international corporate suppliers against the supermarkets. A great deal of work remains to be done on the code of practice and the role of the ombudsman, but it is important that we are reassured that that will not be the result. There are some good reasons for Government intervention, however, one of the most fundamental being food security. The Government's consultation on "Food 2030" recognised that as an important role for government. We must therefore hope that they realise the importance of watching the financial and agricultural markets. At the beginning of the recent equity rally in the City, huge amounts of money were invested in agricultural products, which had a hugely distorting effect on the markets, compromising food supply in certain parts of the third world. There is an important means of intervention in that area.
	There is a recognition that what we eat is what we are. In that regard, government has an important role in monitoring what goes into our food system. The hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) raised the important issue of trans fats. In relation to that, obesity is an issue of concern. Many people suffer from that condition in my constituency and in Croydon, South, and they are unable to get effective operations from the NHS to deal with it.
	My constituency has only one farm, so it can hardly be said to have a farming interest. Nevertheless, it has significant food interests. Nestlé UK, which is based in Croydon, is by far the biggest employer in the constituency. I am sure that the prospects for Nestlé are greatly enhanced by the unfortunate situation of Cadbury, a debt-free company that believed strongly in philanthropy, which has been bought at a price that will not prevent asset stripping greatly damaging it. Nestlé, however, is an extremely good citizen in Croydon and takes very seriously corporate responsibility. The company has been the subject of great criticism in the past, and, amazingly, was attacked by my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Croydon, Central. I believe, however, that it has very high standards and is a typical triple A company.
	Croydon has important food interests in other ways. It has a large black and minority ethnic community and their involvement in importing many products from abroad has an important food role and is an important part of our economy. On the London road just across the constituency border in Croydon North, the diversity of products available means that one can shop the world.
	For Croydon, food is also an important green issue. The Heathfield ecology unit and other community activities strongly push the importance of community foods. Food is seen as an important part of securing status for New Addington as an eco-town. We also benefit from many good fish and chip restaurants, especially McDermott's and Top Fryers.
	If we are to have competitiveness in our food industry, we can no longer afford, under the aegis of the European Union, a wasteful and expensive common agricultural policy, or a fisheries policy that causes appalling environmental damage. We should move away from the current EU fishing policies to the effort-based ones of the Faroe Islands, where fisheries bid for an amount of fishing time. That would avoid a situation in which huge amounts of fish are thrown back into the oceans.
	From the point of view of the consumer, the "buy one get one free" approach is extraordinarily discriminatory against those in small families and particularly the elderly. It is unreasonable that they see in shops that if they buy a smaller amount they will suffer a significant financial loss compared with others. We also need to consider the strength of large organisations-for example, Tesco-vis-à-vis local authorities. They are often dominant, and through use of section 106 agreements they can dominate their way into communities. In New Addington, there was a great deal of controversy over a development that would not have been in keeping with the area, although I am sure that, despite pulling out of New Addington several years ago, Tesco would be welcome with a more modest scheme.
	Tesco's moves into corner-shop territory sometimes compromise good business in the shape of small providers, typically south Asian families. In Woodside Green in Croydon, the branch of Londis run by Mr. Patel is threatened by the establishment of a Tesco Express only about 500 yards from the nearest one. Supermarkets should exercise balance and discretion.
	I recall a most enjoyable visit to New Covent Garden with the Minister and the Secretary of State to inspect regional British foods. We should celebrate the added value that can be provided by the specialisms of British food manufacturers, and we should also bear in mind the importance of regional foods in reducing the number of "food miles". We should pay attention to what is put on our plates here in London. The Minister was, of course, an excellent Minister for London.
	Many regional food businesses provide employment for my constituents. We may have only one farm, Heathfield farm, but many of the wineries that have grown up in Surrey provide important employment as well.

Consideration of Bill, as amended.

Christopher Chope: I am addressing amendment No. 74, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Christopher Chope: I was merely trying to respond to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not intend to anticipate the debate on a subsequent group of amendments, and I will not be drawn any further down that avenue.
	I am trying to explain to my hon. Friend that the wording of amendment No. 74 is not less but more restrictive than the wording of the current law, because under the current law there is no specific limit to the carrying capacity of the vehicle that the pedlar takes with him in order to conduct his business.

Christopher Chope: I agree. That is why I have made the suggestion in amendment No. 74, and that is why, when I discussed these issues with the promoters of the Leeds and Reading Bills, I went even further and conceded-to the chagrin of some pedlars-that, in the particular circumstances of Leeds and Reading, it would be reasonable not to allow the pedlar to have anything with him other than the goods on his person.
	The clear rationale set out in the main letter from the chief executive of Manchester city council, and in the separate letter from the leader of the council, which was well circulated-it was sent to a number of councils, encouraging them to ask their local Members of Parliament to participate in today's debate-is that the mischief that the Bills wish to address is that of wheeled vehicles drawn by so-called pedlars which are causing obstructions in town centres.
	Obviously I would think that my own amendment was a good one, but it seems to me that amendment No. 74 clearly expresses a way of meeting the intentions of the amendments tabled by members of the Opposed Private Bill Committee without creating a complicated new provision that would offend all the principles of good regulation.

Christopher Chope: I accept what my hon. Friend says. That is why I am not going as far as to suggest 20 minutes, and why I am proposing a 15-minute compromise. Having read the transcript of the proceedings in the Opposed Bill Committee, I doubt whether the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) about its being very hard to provide some services within five minutes was taken on board at all.

Christopher Chope: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Not for the first time, two hon. Members have reached different conclusions about what should be the right form of the legislation. However, clause 5 and the amendments tabled as a result of the deliberations in the Opposed Bill Committee show that the members of that Committee, and now the Bill's promoters, have tried to encapsulate in statute the case law that has arisen.
	There is no evidence to suggest that case law requires a pedlar to move between each set of transactions a distance of 200 metres rather than 20 metres, which is the distance that I suggest in amendment 9. I strongly dissent from my hon. Friend's suggestion that that is a wrecking amendment. It is not. The amendment has been selected for debate, and it is based upon representations that I have received. I have modified them not only to make them more reasonable, but to bring them closer than might otherwise have been possible to the concerns expressed.

Christopher Chope: I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that as a gentleman of good character if I applied for my pedlar's certificate I would be able to get one.
	My hon. Friend makes a fair point. However, the problem is that this information is not available at the moment. If he looks at the Bournemouth council website, he will not be able to find out to which streets in Bournemouth the 1982 Act applies and to which it does not apply. It is a more complex issue. We have not yet got on to the penalties that will come by way of fixed penalty fines or seizures, but the consequences for a pedlar of operating unwittingly in a street in which he should not be operating can be very significant.

Christopher Chope: I hear what my hon. Friends say, but when the director of tourism was asked about this issue in the Opposed Bill Committee he made it clear that there was a problem at particular times of the year, especially in the summer and at Christmas. Now it seems that this is a problem the year round. If that is my hon. Friends' view, I can understand why they are opposed to the amendments.

Christopher Chope: I certainly do not want to replicate the wider debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me bring us back to what the amendments do and note that no one from Manchester has raised any objection to the points that I have raised about the Manchester City Council Bill. I urge the House to agree that the specific restriction that I have proposed for the Manchester City Council Bill-that the ambit of the legislation should not extend beyond one mile from the centre of Manchester as defined by Albert square-is probably the strongest argument that I can put forward from among all the amendments. Obviously it would be inappropriate to take up the House's time by voting on more than one amendment in the group. When it comes to the appropriate time, I would therefore seek to have a vote on that amendment to the Manchester City Council Bill, rather than on an amendment to the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill. I hope that my hon. Friends will see that as a reasonable way out of our predicament.
	This will be my final comment on this subject, because I know that other people wanted to participate in this debate, but there is an analogy between what we are debating and legislation on shotguns. Shotgun certificates can be obtained from a police authority anywhere in the country, and they have national application. Would this House contemplate a situation where each local authority could legislate for the way in which shotguns could be used or operated in its area, even when the holder of a shotgun had a licence for it that had been issued on a national basis? The answer is that we would not.
	There is always a conflict between what is in the national interest and what is in the local interest. In this case, however, because there is national legislation relating to pedlars and because the pedlars' certificate has national application, it is wrong to say that local will should always prevail, especially if the consequent legislation is unclear, muddled and hard for pedlars to understand.
	The latest Government consultation paper states that pedlars are, on the whole, entrepreneurial, and good with-

Christopher Chope: I am conscious that we have not had a substantive contribution to the debate from my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth, West and for Bournemouth, East, other than through useful interventions. We have had no discussion whatever in relation to Manchester city council. On day two of the Opposed Private Bill Committee, Superintendent Lee made it clear in his evidence that the problem in Manchester is confined to places such as Albert square and Piccadilly, and that it is limited to times such as the Christmas lights switch-on, which is one of the big events of the year in Manchester. If the Bill passes unamended in relation to time and location, its ambit will cover every month of the year and every street in the city of Manchester, the case for which has not been made.
	The wider the ambit of such restrictive legislation, the more difficult it is to have a sensible enforcement regime.

PROSTATE CANCER(ABIRATERONE)

Daniel Kawczynski: I am pleased to have secured an Adjournment debate on the diagnosis of prostate cancer and trials of the drug abiraterone.
	Ten thousand men die of prostate cancer every year. A welcome recent development was an advertisement on television by Bob Monkhouse. His wife, now regrettably deceased herself, kindly allowed the use of images of her late husband talking about prostate cancer while walking around a graveyard. Having spoken to quite a few people about the advertisement, I know that it is remembered because it was so effective.
	I very much hope that in future, when the Government put out public broadcast advertisements, a little more imagination is used, and lessons can be learned from the Bob Monkhouse video. It is important to ensure that people remember the issues rather than thinking "It is just another Government advert, yet more Labour spin", and forgetting about it. If we are going to spend this money, we ought to think imaginatively so that we can build on the Bob Monkhouse advertisement in a way that resonates.
	I have called this debate because a constituent of mine, Mr. Roger Walker of Shrewsbury, suffers from prostate cancer. Earlier this evening, I sent the Minister a copy of a very emotional letter that I had received from Mr. Walker. I hope that, if the Minister has not yet received the letter, he will take time to have a look at what my constituent has written to me about the extraordinary suffering that he has undergone as a result of not having prostate cancer diagnosed effectively when he first sought help.
	My constituent decided to see his local general practitioner because he was going to the toilet far more often than was normal, and his brother, who at the time was dying of prostate cancer, had informed him that that was a symptom. Very regrettably, his brother subsequently died. His father has also died of prostate cancer, as has his uncle. Therefore, there is a history of the men in the Walker family being affected by prostate cancer.
	Mr. Walker went to see his GP, but he was not given a screening test, despite informing the practice that his brother, father and uncle had all died, or were dying, of prostate cancer. Nor was he given a prostate-specific antigen-PSA. However, such was the perseverance of Mr. Walker-he is a strong, powerful and persuasive man, who makes his point very well-that he doggedly kept going back to the medical practice until he was finally granted a PSA. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital. That diagnosis, however, came 10 and a half months after his initial approach to the doctor, and that 10 and a half months has had a great impact, as it would have on anybody living with a disease such as prostate cancer without being diagnosed. That leads to huge complications, and any other medication and available treatments were, of course, not used in that period.
	I am not criticising in any way any of the NHS staff in Shrewsbury-either people in the medical practice or anybody who dealt with Mr. Walker. I am very proud of the NHS staff in Shropshire; we have very good staff. If there have been individual problems in respect of individual doctors or others who dealt with Mr. Walker, however, that will be addressed by the General Medical Council. My purpose is to let the Minister know what happened to my constituent, and to highlight his case to him.
	What would I like the Minister to do? An article was printed in the  Daily Mail on 8 July, including an interview with the leading researcher, Dr. Johann de Bono from the Royal Marsden hospital. The title of the article was: "The prostate cancer 'wonder pill' set to save thousands every year". It stated that there had been
	"a dramatic breakthrough against a lethal form of prostate cancer."
	Mr. Walker read the article and it gave him significant hope. It said:
	"Trials of a new pill have shown that it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent. of cases, and end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy...Abiraterone is now being used in a 1,200-patient international study, including at ten sites across the UK. If it is licensed as expected in 2011, it will have to await approval by the rationing watchdog NICE before it is made freely available across the NHS."
	I do not want Mr. Walker, my constituent who has been through so much pain, to have to wait for the drug to be licensed in 2011 and then for it to be approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. I very much hope that he will be allowed to be one of the people in the United Kingdom who is involved in this international study, and be given the drug abiraterone so that his life can be prolonged.
	I have written to Dr. de Bono about this, and he wrote back to me saying that he will consider Mr. Walker's case only if he is referred. I therefore want to let the Minister know that I have today written to the chief executive of the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, asking for Mr. Walker's referral appointment, which is not due until the end of February, to be brought forward. He can then be seen as quickly as possible at the hospital and be referred as quickly as possible to Dr. de Bono at the Royal Marsden hospital, so that he can be considered for the drug abiraterone.
	An interesting point is made in the article, to which I would like the Minister to respond. It states that Dr. de Bono
	"describes prostate cancer as the 'Cinderella cancer' because it receives just a quarter of the funding of breast cancer".
	Interestingly, in the UK the same number of people die from prostate cancer as from breast cancer, but prostate cancer research receives only £10 million per annum, whereas breast cancer research received £40 million last year. I am rather concerned about that big difference.
	In the time left available to me, I want to make a few points that were passed on to me by the Prostate Cancer Charity, which has kindly provided me with a briefing paper for this debate. It informs me that the United Kingdom National Screening Committee is reviewing an introduction of a national prostate cancer screening programme later this year. This eminent charity says the following:
	"Recent research has found that screening for prostate cancer using the PSA test can reduce the number of deaths from the disease by 20 per cent. However, the authors of this study also stated that a national screening programme would lead to a significant level of over-diagnosis of 'harmless' prostate cancers. This means that current evidence does not appear to show that a national screening programme for prostate cancer, using the PSA test, could achieve an acceptable balance between benefit (through lives saved) and harm (though over-diagnosis and false positive and false negative results)."
	I would very much like to know the Minister's attitude to the National Screening Committee's reviewing and to the point made by the charity.
	I feel passionately and very much agree with this point from the charity:
	"The Prostate Cancer Charity does not currently support the introduction of PSA-based national prostate cancer screening programme. However, the Charity strongly supports the right of every man over the age of 50 years-and younger men at higher risk of prostate cancer-to make an informed choice about whether he should have a PSA test."
	That is very important, and I would like the Minister to confirm that anybody in the United Kingdom who is over that age or who has a history of prostate cancer in the family, as my constituent had, should be able to go to their doctor and demand a PSA test because of their concerns, particularly if they are showing early symptoms.
	The Department of Health policy states that all men are entitled to make an informed decision about whether they should have the PSA test. Currently, information about the PSA test is delivered to men through the prostate cancer risk management programme-PCRMP. Under the current implementation of the PCRMP, for men to receive balanced information about the PSA test from their GP they must first be aware of prostate cancer and the PSA test, and then request to see their GP for further advice. That is the main crux of what I wish to put to the Minister and of what the Prostate Cancer Charity wishes to say.
	Recent research by the charity has found that
	"around 50 per cent. of 50-70 year old men are not aware of the PSA test".
	That refers to my point about the need for effective advertising. That figure of 50 per cent. is incredible, so I very much hope that through my having this Adjournment debate and my local media taking up the issue in Shropshire, my Salopian constituents will begin to find out more about the PSA test.
	The charity also found that
	"awareness of the PSA test is lower among men from lower socio-economic groups"
	and that
	"82 per cent. of GPs were not aware of the PCRMP".
	Finally,
	"20 per cent. of GPs did not think that asymptomatic men should have access to the PSA test."
	That is of great concern to me. I do not understand-I hope that the Minister can give me an answer-how a GP could be against a PSA test if their patient was showing signs of prostate cancer. I am not a medical man, but it seems highly logical that they would always support a PSA test. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me on that. Those findings highlight the broad lack of awareness about the PSA test as well as the barriers that some informed men might face when requesting a test from their GP.
	It has been a great pleasure for me to be able to highlight the risk of prostate cancer and to play a small part in trying to highlight the terrible issues that surround this appalling disease and illness. This is one of those occasions as a Back Bencher when one realises just how worth while this job is-when one can highlight a constituent's suffering on their behalf and try to cut through the red tape in some way by raising it with the Minister.
	I feel passionately about Mr. Walker's case and want to do something to help him. He is a grandfather with five beautiful grandchildren and I hope that by raising this issue I can ask the Minister, although he is a very busy man, to help me and my office as we try to support Mr. Walker through these difficult times.

Mike O'Brien: May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing this debate? I can think of few things more important than our fight against cancer, and that is why we have put in place the national two-week targets for people to be able to see a cancer specialist. It is also why we recently announced that we need to ensure that cancer diagnosis tests are completed within one week. We want to ensure that these improvements in cancer health are put in place quickly.
	This terrible and insidious disease will touch most of our lives at some point-through members of our family, because we know someone who has cancer or because we battle it ourselves. The hon. Gentleman asked what action the NHS is taking to ensure that cancer patients are given the early diagnosis and treatment that are so vital in dealing with the disease, but before I talk about that perhaps I can first address his concerns for his constituent, Roger Walker. The hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention to the Bob Monkhouse advert, which I, too, thought was extremely effective. People do remember it.
	I was very sorry to hear that Mr. Walker has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I have not had his letter yet, but I shall certainly read it, as the hon. Gentleman requests. I understand that Mr. Walker's brother, father and uncle died from this disease. We know that this particular cancer can cluster in families, with about 5 to 10 per cent. of cases thought to have a substantial inherited component. At present, there are no definitive guidelines for screening in such high-risk families because of the uncertainties about the effectiveness of testing and treatment, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. However, the leaflet that GPs give to patients who are concerned about prostate cancer clearly states:
	"The risk is greater for men who have a family history of prostate cancer".
	Bearing in mind Mr. Walker's family history and the importance of early diagnosis to successful treatment, I can understand his concern at not being offered the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, test by his former GP at the earliest opportunity.
	On 16 July 2007, Mr. Walker registered a complaint with the General Medical Council about his then GP's failure to make a timely referral and diagnosis of the cancer. I understand that after looking at the patient notes, the GMC closed the case with no further action as it considered that
	"on the basis of the evidence available, there was no realistic prospect of proving his GP's fitness to practise was impaired to a degree which would warrant action on his registration."
	On 19 May 2008, Mr. Walker provided the GMC with further evidence, leading to the reopening of his case. An investigation is ongoing and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that neither he nor I can comment further on that.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked me to consider Mr. Walker's request to participate in the ongoing trials of abiraterone. Such matters are not for Ministers: quite rightly, they are not political decisions and so are beyond Ministers' influence. Whether a person is appropriate for trials of a particular drug is a wholly clinical decision, and I am told that subjects are selected according to the strict eligibility criteria that are set to test a drug's safety and efficacy.
	In other words, a group is selected for the testing of a particular drug, but unfortunately, some people do not meet the criteria. I am advised that it appears that Mr. Walker is one of those who do not meet the criteria, but the hon. Gentleman has written to the chairman of his PCT and I hope that the matter will be examined and an appropriate decision taken. Mr. Walker is dealing with a multidisciplinary team at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital, and I am told that the team will be looking at alternative clinical trials that may be more suitable for his condition.
	I turn now to the other matters raised by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham. Everyone involved in cancer care is dedicated to improving outcomes for people with cancer. The goal of the Government's 2007 cancer reform strategy is to deliver cancer care outcomes that are among the best in the world.
	In 2008-09, the Health Secretary spent more than £5 billion on cancer services in England, and that is more than 5 per cent. of all NHS spending. Spending on cancer services has increased by more than a third over the past five financial years. There are now around 1,500 multidisciplinary cancer teams working to improve the delivery of treatment and care for cancer patients. The result has been that mortality rates for cancer fell by almost one fifth between 1996 and 2008, which means that every year there are more than 9,000 people walking around who previously would have died.
	Today, on average, 95 per cent. of people see a specialist within two weeks of referral for suspected cancer. In Mr. Walker's local hospital, the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital, the rate is even higher, at 99.5 per cent. That is a very good rate and, since April last year, all patients undergoing treatment for cancer, the effects of cancer or the effects of cancer treatment are entitled to free prescriptions.
	In 2000, the Government published the NHS prostate cancer programme, in which we set out our commitment to improve prostate cancer services. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to continue to work on prostate cancer, as it is an area in which a lot of improvement is still needed. By improving the early detection and diagnosis of prostate cancer, by improving the treatment and care that patients receive, and by enhancing research into the disease, our aim was to ensure that we could assist those men who may be at risk.
	Early diagnosis is an important part of effective treatment for prostate cancer. From next year, and over the following five years, we will roll out diagnostic tests that can confirm or exclude cancer within a week. We believe that faster access to diagnostic tests, alongside work on early detection, will help save up to 10,000 lives a year. Screening is therefore an important tool in early diagnosis, and that is why we have developed world-class screening programmes for breast, bowel and cervical cancers. Although there is currently no automatic national screening programme for prostate cancer, we remain committed to introducing new screening programmes as and when they are proven to be both clinically and cost effective.
	Research published last March in the  New England Journal of Medicine has shown for the first time that screening for prostate cancer can reduce the death rate by 20 per cent. However, it also showed that more than 1,410 men needed to be screened to save one life-and that 48 of those would end up being treated unnecessarily, with all the side effects that that can cause. There are therefore problems to do with screening that we really need to resolve before any test is introduced on a national basis, because treating 48 people unnecessarily to save one life would pose significant difficulties. We have asked the UK National Screening Committee to review this evidence and to make a recommendation on prostate cancer screening by the autumn of this year.
	As part of our prostate cancer programme, we have established the prostate cancer risk management programme, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. This ensures that men considering a prostate-specific antigen test are given the information that they need about it. For a while a PSA test can help with diagnosis, but it is not perfect. Some men with prostate cancer do not have raised PSA levels, and, depending on the cut-off level used, two thirds of men with raised PSA levels do not have prostate cancer, so the test is not perfect. It can lead to false-positive and false-negative results, and that is why PSA tests divide opinion among GPs and, indeed, other clinicians. Some are concerned about them because of those issues, and the PSA test cannot distinguish between men with slow-growing prostate cancer, which may have no effect on a man's natural lifespan, and those who have a more aggressive disease.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about choice. In 2010 all GPs in England were sent a pack of materials to give their patients the information that they need to make an informed choice about the PSA test. Our policy, as he rightly says, is that if a patient wants a test, after considering the benefits, limitations and risks associated with it, they should receive one on the NHS. Based on an evaluation of the ongoing prostate cancer risk management programme, a revised information pack was sent to GPs in July 2009, six months ago. In August the chief medical officer then wrote to all GPs to remind them that their patients should be given access to PSA tests in accordance with the PCRMP.
	A lot of information is thrown at GPs, so we need constantly to remind them to do various things, because we ask them to do so many. The hon. Gentleman is right that, sometimes, feedback from polls states that some GPs do not know about the test. It does not mean that they have not been told; it may mean that they have been told but, given the sheer volume of information that they are sent, have forgotten it or do not have it at the forefront of their mind.
	It was recognised that some GPs are unaware either of the original pack or of their patients' right to a PSA test, so an action plan to engage GPs better has been developed. There has already been a trade media launch and a webcast, and GPs now have the PCRMP materials on their IT systems, helping them better to support their patients. Other plans to remind them include a roadshow for GPs and a peer-reviewed paper in the  British Medical Journal. The campaign to alert men to prostate cancer is therefore enormously important, and I welcome the stories that have appeared in the  Daily Mail. That work is valuable in alerting men and getting them to go to their GP if they have problems, and reminding GPs that men should be given the PSA test. Such campaigns can save the lives of many men, so I welcome the work of the  Daily Mail. Whether the drug that we have discussed is a "wonder pill" is another matter, but we will see what the outcome is of the clinical trials.
	Once diagnosed, patients are entitled to receive the best possible care on the NHS. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has published a series of improving outcomes guidance covering all major cancer tumours, including urological cancers such as prostate cancer. It recommended the way in which primary care trusts and cancer networks should organise cancer services to ensure the best outcomes, and the national cancer action team monitors progress against those plans. In 2008, NICE also published new guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, and they recommended good practice based on the best available evidence and professional opinion.
	However good our treatment today, we must always strive for more, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said. We can still continue to do better. The Government are among the largest funders of cancer research, along with the industry and the cancer research charities. Through the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research, we fund about £250 million of cancer research every year. The vast majority of this money supports clinical trials and research undertaken by our partners in the public and charitable sectors. We are very proud of our record of excellence in health research and of what its results mean for people not only in the UK but around the whole world. Britain is one of the leaders in cancer research. The Government are determined to continue to do whatever we can in the fight against cancer: it is an enormously high priority for us. Our excellent record of high investment and high ambition is saving more lives today. We have a long way to go in the fight against cancer, but we must, and will, strive to do more.
	Finally, I wish Mr. Walker well in his continuing treatment and hope that it brings with it some success.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.